Date Published: May 16, 2006   

E-mail on poultry bill fuels talks

Council opinion divided on state vs. county issue

By LESLIE CANTU
Item Staff Writer
lesliec@theitem.com

An e-mail from Sumter County Council urging legislators to vote against the so-called poultry bill hatched ever-widening circles of confusion during the weekend and Monday as some council members wondered when council had taken a stand on the bill.

Council hadn't debated the bill, which would centralize regulations for agricultural facilities under the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The bill applies to all agricultural facilities, excepting hog farms and slaughterhouses, to include crop farms, honeybee operations, commercial aquaculture and roadside markets, among others, though most of the focus has been on chicken houses.

Opponents argue the bill chips away at home rule, while supporters argue the poultry industry is beginning to suffer because some counties have enacted setbacks for chicken houses stricter than DHEC's, which reduces the amount of land available for poultry farming.

The issue is particularly divisive in Sumter County, home to a Gold Kist processing plant that's one of the county's largest employers.

County Administrator Bill Noonan said he asked Clerk Mary Blanding to send the e-mail to Sumter's House delegation urging them to vote against the bill after the South Carolina Association of Counties asked members to lobby against it.

"When we're asked to support the position of the association of counties, generally speaking we do. ... This particular issue apparently creates a divide and that surfaced after I'd asked Mary to go ahead and write the letter," Noonan said.

He said he'll have the clerk write another letter explaining that council members are not unanimous on the subject.

The e-mail prompted Council Chairwoman Vivian Fleming-McGhaney to write a letter to the delegation expressing her concerns about both sides of the debate.

"I agree wholeheartedly that there are certain aspects of government that must be exclusively handled on the local level, and I respect the persistence of Senator (Phil) Leventis in standing at the forefront in this argument," she wrote.

Yet she doesn't want to endanger Gold Kist and the jobs it represents.

"As you approach your decision on this Bill, please consider the total spectrum. After all, there has to be a way that you all can protect home rule and make provisions for the farmers," she wrote.

Unfortunately, Fleming-McGhaney said Monday, some counties have not been able to develop solid working relationships across business, industry and community lines to come up with compromise ordinances, and "it has caused our legislators to want to usurp the authority of home rule."

Council Vice Chairman Gene Baten said Monday he hadn't seen the message copied to his e-mail address, but he would have had a few questions had the subject come before council.

"I would have questioned why were we opposing DHEC standards and are we going to get a second opinion before we oppose DHEC standards," Baten said.

Although he sympathizes with neighbors who are unhappy with the smells chicken houses can produce, Baten said the county and its delegation need to protect jobs.

"What really upsets me is Lee County wants to come up with some strong rules ... but at the same time they've got a lot of their residents crossing county lines coming over to Gold Kist to work," Baten said.

The issue is so strongly felt in Sumter that Baten and Councilman Charles Edens, whose views are often polar opposites, find themselves on the same side of the table.

Councilman Jimmy Byrd also said his position is the opposite of the e-mail sent on council's behalf.

Byrd said he supports home rule, but sometimes local governments overreach.

"Someone needs to step in and say, 'Listen, you're going too far,'" he said.

Edens, a poultry farmer himself, said he believes the DHEC standards are strict enough. In addition, poultry farming is one of the few viable options left to small farmers, he said.

Councilman Roland Robinson, however, said he agreed with the gist of the e-mail.

"I think they should leave that to the county," he said.

Lawmakers have a tendency to start passing laws without consulting local officials, he said, and while Sumter certainly doesn't want Gold Kist to close, there are other ways to deal with their problems, such as the stricter setbacks that Orangeburg County passed.

"They should deal with Orangeburg and try to get them to change it," Robinson said.

Sumter's resident House members both appear poised to support the bill.

State Rep. David Weeks, D-Sumter, said he is leaning toward supporting the bill.

"This has been one of the bills that I've agonized over as much as any bill that's come before us this year," he said.

He supports home rule, he said, but he's also concerned about local industry. Whether the poultry industry will be affected as much as its publicity suggests is still up in the air, but he's still coming down on the side of jobs this time, Weeks said.

State Rep. Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said he was "quite shocked" and "real disappointed" when he received the e-mail opposing the bill, until he began hearing from council members who didn't agree with the message.

He said he doesn't buy the argument that the bill affects home rule.

"It should not be up to the individual counties to completely eradicate poultry houses," he said.

He used the analogy of speed limits on interstates. County councils can't unilaterally change the speed limit on I-95, he said, then set up speed traps to make money on unsuspecting motorists who assume the speed limit remains the same from rural county to rural county.

Noonan, however, said this bill is a step in the wrong direction, though he agreed it won't single-handedly dismantle home rule.

"By itself? Probably not. But the way you tear a building down is one brick at a time and then it falls down. And that's what we see here," Noonan said.

The bill appears on the House's uncontested calendar today, but Weeks said it will probably be moved to the contested calendar and could be debated later this week or early next week.



Contact Staff Writer Leslie Cantu at lesliec@theitem.com or 803-774-1250.